bertrand

It's been great reading these memories of Jackie. I got to see him about seven times, and every one was a treasure. I also wish Jackie had been more out there in the last 15 years (on record as well as in person), but I feel it is too early to discuss this. I attended the funeral Friday (I guess I was the only organissimo person there). It was a very moving experience. I will post longer on this when I can get my thoughts collected - I don't want to rush it. Bertrand.

He gets the correct year of birth (1931) but STILL gives a wrong age. Bertrand.

I will be attending Jackie's funeral on Friday. I will report back. Bertrand.

It's from the self-penned liners to Destination...out! It applies today just as much as it did in 1963. Bertrand.

Lon, I join our friends in wishing you and your wife all the best in this difficult time. Sincerely, Bertrand.

Shane, I assume the service is only for family and close friends, correct? I'm glad to hear that he is coming home to where he grew up. Bertrand.

Monk did not like bowing. Bertrand.

Bon anniversaire, Claude! Ton ami, Bertrand.

Allen, That might actually fit in with my idea, or complement it. I'll follow up on this. Too bad Freddie is not in D.C. anymore (he was in the 80s). We could probably have made something happen a long time ago. I'll talk to Rene about it when things settle down. Now enough hijacking of Jim's thread on my part - when I've made some progress, I'll start a new one. Bertrand.

Freddie Redd is still around, but living in a trailer park in LA with no bread and no phone. I have a PO Box for him. He has been occasionally playing around. There was a gig around Thanksgiving (search the live shows forum). I've been thinking about ways to get him more gigs. I am pursuing one idea, but it's a slow process. Anybody else have ideas? Bertrand.

Allen, Is Godfrey still living? He plays on Redd's last BN session. What is the name of the tune Freddie named for him? Where does it appear? Thanks, Bertrand.

I knew about this date, but never noticed before the presence of 'Chan', or didn't make the connection. Of course, Bird springs to mind. I have a line on some 'ornithologists' - I'll ask around. Jim, this personnel info come from the CD, correct? Bertrand.

The Washington Post obituary confirms that his last gigs were in the summer of 2004. Europe and the Middle East are mentioned, so I must be remembering Turkey correctly. Sobering to think that I attended his last NYC gig. Bertrand.

Kreilly, The rejected session was rejected at Jackie's request - he thought the drummer ruined the date. This was in an interview in Cadence or Coda which I can no longer find. Soul Stream, I do not know what illness Jackie had. I just know that people who used to talk to him on a regular basis suddenly stopped hearing any news from him. I was always holding out hope (and certainly didn't want to post anything here since it was hearsay), but I heard that Barry Harris actually announced a couple of weeks ago in Baltimore that Jackie was very ill, and after that I feared the worst. When and where did you see him play? I was just mentally running through my head what the last public appearances were. I saw two nights at the Iridium in late May (not early) 2004 with Grachan, Hutch and Rene. I met someone who saw him in Italy shortly threafter. I think he was also in Greece or Turkey that summer. He was also listed as part of the Dizzy alum band in Newport in August 2004, although I'm not sure he was there. I didn't hear of anything after that. If you saw him later than that, this would be very important info from a chronological standpoint. Bertrand.

I had a bad feeling this was coming, but it still hurts like hell. Thanks for all the beautiful music, Jackie. We will never forget you. By the way, he was 74, not 73. Bertrand.

Last time I checked (2 years ago?), the Marriott across the street from my house charged $100-115 a night on week-ends. It's in Bethesda MD, and they have a shuttle to metro (there's also several bus lines). It takes about 40 minutes to get to the museums. You can also part at Grosvenor metro for free, if you have a car with you (the hotel charges $8 a day for parking). Downtown Bethesda (just minutes away) has hundreds of restaurants. Crystal City might be a bit closer, but super-depressing. Just high-rises all over the place. If you want to try some jazz gigs, we could do a mini-organissimo reunion. Twins jazz on U street has Jeremy Pelt that W/E - I was thinking of going. Send me a PM if you want more info on the Marriott. I don't get a commission for recommending them, nor do I get a break on my gym and pool membership! Bertrand.

I wonder if he's the idiot who told Benson NOT to join Miles' band. Bertrand.

... Vincent Wilburn!!! More later. Bertrand.

You gotta admit he was pretty damn funny in High Fidelity, though. I loved the scene where he's chewing out the guy who wants to buy 'I Just Called To Say I Love You'. Bertrand.

It's a tough job being a record producer. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. David was given the assignment of listening to the date and, as a musician, could hear what was 'a bit off'. Now that he chose to omit those tracks, there are some complaints. Had he decided the whole session was releasable, he would have gotten complaints too, to the tune of 'this is one date Blue Note had been better off leaving in the can'. My one complaint is that this session was first dismissed as 'needs to be burned'. That was obviously an exaggeration. There is an obvious solution to the problem of how to make the remaining material in the Blue Note vaults that is 'a bit off' but not wretched available to the consumer. Make these tracks available on iTunes or some other download site (I vote for iTunes since it is what I use). At $.99 a tune, and 5-6 tunes an album, no one could complain about having spent a fortune on 'inferior material'. A good candidate would be the rejected Wayne Shorter session which David has admitted elsewhere (was it all about jazz?) is really not a total disaster. With a bit of clever marketing, this might just work. I really don't believe the current regime at Blue Note could pull this off, to be honest. Bertrand.

I have a TOCJ cut-out of Holiday For Skins Volume One I got at the Tower outlet in NYC years ago for $7. I never did find an affordable Volume Two! This will plug a hole - I hate missing a Volume. Hope it shows up at yourmusic. My bet of waiting for the Andrew Hills from the first Mosaic to show up individually is paying off. Now we just need Compulsion!!! and the 1966 session... Bertrand.

Aaaarghhhhh.... I didn't know about the recycling of the tunes from Another Workout! I need to put EVERY Hank Mobley composition into my iPod into a playlist and use that to get them straight. That's what I did with Monk. I'll start a thread later to try to sort this out. Bertrand.

JPF, Glad to hear Stuart Kremsky is still with Fantasy/Concord. I was a bit worried. He was looking into something for me, but it had been a long time... How does one contact Stuart now? Thanks, Bertrand.

David Chessky and Chuck Nessa. Bertrand.

I need to clarify - I am not importing the data at all. I just put the CD in and use iTunes (or Realplayer) as the playback system. When I take the CD out, the files are not on my PC. So there is no issue of extraction speed. I did try importing to iTunes and whatever playback problem I was having got carried over. I have been extracting at the iTunes default speed. The sound is fine for me, and except for the rare problems mentioned above, everything is fine. In other words 500+ CDs went into iTunes at that speed without problems. Bertrand.